


Promises

by JaceofAllTrade



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Drug Use, Guns, M/M, Multi, Panic Attack, for memory loss purposes, kidnapping sorta?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:02:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28748130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaceofAllTrade/pseuds/JaceofAllTrade
Summary: “Senpai, you know you can trust me, right?”
Relationships: Chigasaki Itaru & Utsuki Chikage, Chigasaki Itaru/Takatoo Tasuku, Hyoudou Juuza/Nanao Taichi/Sakuma Sakuya/Settsu Banri/Usui Masumi, Tsukioka Tsumugi/Utsuki Chikage
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Promises

**Author's Note:**

> I was supposed to write a completely different fic, but instead, I wrote this. Also, the tags look bad, but I promise, there's nothing explicitly described which is why this isn't tagged with graphic depictions of violence. Last thing, the romantic relationships aren't the main focus.
> 
> If you have a problem with he/it/bun/moon Chikage and he/they/marsh/moon Hisoka, then don't read.

“Senpai, you know you can trust me, right?”

Somehow, they arrived here. Chikage was strangely efficient and thorough whenever it had to leave for… whatever it had to leave for. No one ever had any suspicions by its departure because it left and arrived when everyone was asleep. It kept its smile on its face and spoke without a single waver.

But Itaru knew.

He always knew.

When the door closed behind Chikage, Itaru opened his eyes and groaned as he rubbed at his eyes tiredly. When Chikage came back home, Itaru stared a little too long as its movements about their room were a little too stiff. When Chikage spoke to the other members of Mankai, only Itaru noticed that Chikage kept the conversations short with reasonable excuses to lessen the possibilities of people finding out.

“You know you’re not doing this alone anymore, right? Senpai…?”

Chikage shook its head. In fact, it stood from the couch and went to leave, clearly finished with this discussion— _argument._

But Itaru wasn’t.

Not by a long shot.

Itaru quickly rushed forward from his gaming chair and reached to grab it. “Senpai—!” But when Itaru’s fingers wrapped around its wrist, Chikage tugged its arm free and twisted around, grabbing Itaru’s hands and shoving them against his chest until he backed into the wall. Trying to free himself from the other’s grip, Itaru looked into Chikage’s eyes with a mix of pain and worry. He felt its grip lessen slightly but not enough for him to free his hands. Itaru tried not to pay attention to the growing red circle on Chikage’s side. Its stitches must’ve reopened.

“Senpai, please,” Itaru begged, “I don’t know what you do! I don’t care what you do! I don’t care about any of that shit, I just want—mmph!”

Chikage covered his mouth with its other hand as an involuntary hiss came from its lips at the sudden movement. For a while, Itaru could only stare into Chikage’s eyes and muffle out noises and try to break free, but it was all for naught. So he pleaded with Chikage with his eyes.

Pleaded that it’d stay.

Pleaded that it’d let him help.

Pleaded that it’d _trust him._

It felt like years until Chikage finally opened its mouth to speak.

“You should care…”

Its voice held this lingering pain. A pain that encapsulated all the built up stress. All the situations that continued to weigh it down. All the little instances that normally wouldn’t affect it if they weren’t adding to its shoulders. All the fear and doubt and just straight up _pain_ it had to endure for who knew how long.

A pain that Itaru knew all too well.

Swallowing thickly, Itaru took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, fully knowing that a single word wouldn’t be heard, but he had to try. “But I don’t,” Itaru said firmly into its hand, slightly annoyed that Chikage pressed its hand more onto his mouth. “I don’t,” Itaru stated again and he wasn’t even sure if Chikage could understand what he was saying. He needed to get it across though. He needed Chikage to know that Itaru really didn’t give a fuck.

“Doushite…?” Chikage choked out as Itaru finally realized that tears were pooling in its eyes. It was hard to notice considering his own eyes were already watering. “Why are you so adamant? I’m just—“ Chikage sucked in a breath. “I don’t deserve your trust. Your kindness. No one’s. You don’t know who I really am, Itaru.”

It took way too long for Itaru to notice that Chikage’s grip around his hands had significantly lessened. So he gently pulled his hands away from its and raised his hands. He had half a mind to cup his hands around its cheeks and swipe away the tears, but instead, his hands settled on its shoulders and he gave a light squeeze before pulling Chikage into a tight hug as its hand fell from his mouth.

“I…” Itaru cleared his throat. Really, he didn’t need his voice cracking right now. He didn’t care if he was raw with emotions, he needed to say this. “I know you’re Utsuki Chikage, my senior at the trading company we both work at. I know that after certain events, you joined Mankai officially and have a giant fucking soft spot for Spring. I know you have an awkward relationship with your sibling, Hisoka, but you still care about marsh anyway. I know you prefer watching Omi cook your food ‘cause for whatever reason, you can’t bring yourself to thoroughly enjoy it otherwise. I know you—“

“Itaru…”

“Hold on, I’m not done, Senpai.” Itaru tightened his hold around it. “I know you dislike having to lie to anyone’s faces when it’s about something serious. I know you cherish every single gift you’re given by Mankai ‘cause you wouldn’t otherwise display it all around our room since your side is always empty. I know you love talking with whoever and engaging with them, even purposely joining in on antics ‘cause you love spending time with everyone. I know how you like your coffee. I know you prefer baking your cake with Spring on your birthday. I know you do magic to make people smile. I know you like gingerbread cookies.”

Finally, Itaru pulled away and scanned Chikage’s face as a single tear ran down its cheek. “I can go on and on, Senpai, because the truth of the matter is… I _do_ know you. No matter how much you try to hide part of yourself, you let the rest of you spill out like the soda I spilt all over myself yesterday. Whatever you hide from us, you stick with it for a good reason. I don’t know what that reason is, I may never know, but I do know you and I do know that I’m not letting you shoulder all of this alone anymore.”

As Chikage seemed to turn every single one of his words over and over in its head, Itaru continued to hold its gaze and even gave it a small smile as he reached up and cupped its cheek, running his thumb over its cheek just as another tear fell.

“Promise me something,” Chikage finally spoke as Itaru could only slowly nod in response. “Promise you’ll stop me if I ever go too far in front of anyone.”

“Too far?” Itaru echoed with uncertainty.

“Promise me, Itaru.”

Itaru didn’t know what it meant by too far. If incapacitating guards at Zahra wasn’t too far, _what the fuck was too far?_

Ah.

Right.

Let’s not think about that.

“I promise,” Itaru found himself saying as Chikage’s shoulders dropped slightly, much less tense than before. “But you have to promise me something too. Promise you’ll lean on me when it gets too much because it will get too much, I know it’ll get too much. Promise me, Chikage-san.”

It took Chikage much more time to consider his words before “I promise,” Chikage said, barely above a whisper. Then, Chikage wrapped its arms around Itaru’s middle and dropped its head onto his shoulder. “I promise,” it murmured again and tightened its hold.

Chuckling, Itaru wrapped his arms around its neck and rubbed its back, “This isn’t what I meant by ‘lean on me’, Senpai.” That punched a laugh out of Chikage. “But… Thank you, for trusting me. I… I care about you a lot, Senpai.”

Chikage only responded by huffing out a breath.

“Can… Can I give you a healing potion for your side now?”

«~•~»

Itaru wasn’t sure how they ended up here either.

After work, Chikage and Itaru decided to stop by a combini which just so happened to be near the cafe Tsumugi and Banri were checking out that week. However, Itaru only noticed the surprisingly low population of people around the usually busy area seconds before he was grabbed from behind and made a noise of surprise that was muffled by a hand. Honestly, Itaru expected Chikage to be the one doing this just to mess with him, but Chikage was in the combini and the feeling of something cold against his neck meant this was very much not Chikage.

“If you struggle, I will kill you.” They whispered into his ear in an accent Itaru couldn’t pinpoint as Itaru swallowed down a noise and reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled away from the front of the combini that Chikage was still in.

Taken into an alley and then a building nearby, Itaru was shoved to the ground next to Tsumugi and Banri as Itaru coughed into his hand and looked the other two over, eyes widening upon seeing a seemingly okay Tsumugi holding an injured Banri. Then, he noticed the guns pointed at them.

“Hey,” Banri wheezed out with an annoyingly coy smile. Only Banri would smile in a situation like this while bleeding all over the place.

“Please don’t speak, Banri-kun.” Tsumugi said as Banri grunted.

Itaru scanned their surroundings. One gun pointed at each of their heads. Fifteen people—jeez, was Chikage that dangerous? Everyone didn’t appear armed on the surface, but he wouldn’t be surprised if they had some hidden weapons. The building seemed otherwise devoid of people, but there was trash everywhere and they looked like they were organized in a certain way. Possibly cover, if there was a shootout. Games taught him a lot, but they didn’t teach him how to fight. With Banri injured, they had zero chance to get out of here since they had to carry his ass.

Itaru finally settled his gaze back onto Banri. “What’d you do?”

“Wow,” Banri drawled flatly, “Nice to see you t—“ A violent cough shook Banri’s whole body as he groaned from the pain of the sudden movement.

“I said not to talk,” Tsumugi chided with a disappointed frown as Itaru blinked at them. Honestly, how were these two so calm? Itaru could practically hear his own rapid heartbeat. “We were leaving the cafe and they cornered us before separating us. Banri-kun fought back, but he ended up getting shot in the side. He only stopped when a gun was pointed at me.”

“What a hero you are,” Itaru commented offhandedly and watched as most of the people around them started to quietly disperse. “I’m assuming you two already have a vague idea of why we’re here.”

“...Where is it?” Tsumugi asked.

“Not here.”

“Thanks… just the assurance we… fucking needed.” Banri said sarcastically in between breaths and shifted slightly.

Itaru watched Banri for a moment as the younger closed his eyes and seemed to focus on breathing. “You alright?” Stupid question, really, considering there’s a hole in him.

“Just… Not sure how long I can… stay awake…”

“Then don’t, we’ll be fine.”

Banri chuckled shakily, “As the… the only one who can f…ight out of… the… the three of us, I… highly doubt th… that…”

“Banri-kun, you're bleeding. Also, please stop talking.”

“Go to sleep, Banri,” Itaru said and looked around again when fast footsteps came towards them, expecting it to be Chikage but it was only more guns pointed at them.

They yelled something in a language Itaru didn’t know.

_Feels like an anime,_ Itaru thought and took a deep breath when Chikage didn’t answer them and instead dropped three more of them without so much as showing where it was. Turning back to look at the other two, Itaru tried to drown out the sound of bodies dropping and shouts around them as his heartbeat got impossibly louder. At some point, his vision became blurry and it wasn’t until something grabbed his hand did he realize he was having a panic attack.

Itaru met eyes with Tsumugi who gave him a reassuring smile. Really, how the fuck was he so calm? His significant other was currently killing people.

Someone was yelling and it made Itaru swallow at their horrified tone.

_Right. I promised it. I gotta—_

Reluctantly pulling away from Tsumugi, Itaru got up on shaky legs with the help of a nearby table and stumbled as he stepped away from it. “...Y-yamero…”

“Itaru-kun—”

Itaru waved away Tsumugi’s worry, or at least he hoped it looked like a wave, his movements were kind of sluggish at the moment. “Senpai…” Following the sounds of cracking and thuds, Itaru reached shakily for Chikage’s suit jacket and pulled it away with all his might, which wasn’t much but hopefully Chikage would listen to him. “Yamero,” Itaru breathed out. However, when Chikage only moved out of his grasp and went right back to wordlessly beating the other senseless, Itaru curled his hands into fists and moved forward once again until he stood between Chikage and the other dude.

Chikage didn’t seem to be focused on him at all.

“Senpai,” Itaru said more firmly and took a step to the side when Chikage tried to walk around him. “Senpai, listen to me, I… I know what they did was bad, but,” Itaru took another step when Chikage did, “but I need you to calm down and—gh!” When Chikage shoved Itaru aside, he would’ve landed on his ass if it weren’t for Itaru wrapping his arms around Chikage’s neck and pulling him close. “You made me promise to stop you, so I am.” Itaru puffed out a laugh because honestly this was such a ridiculously dangerous situation he put himself in before hiding his face in its neck and tightening his hold. “I will. Just… Come back, Senpai, please… Please just come back to us…”

There was laughing behind him before they said something.

Upon feeling Chikage raise its arm, Itaru widened his eyes and reached over, forcing Chikage’s arm back down. “NO!” Itaru sucked in a breath. “Please don’t… Whatever they said, i-it doesn’t matter. We need to get Banri-kun to a hospital, okay? That should be our main priority, Senpai, alright? Come back so we can help Banri-kun.”

“They… They don’t deserve… They just…”

When Chikage didn’t continue, Itaru nodded and bit his lower lip, “I know, I know they did, but Banri-kun’s bleeding out right now, Senpai. Let’s go. Okay? Let’s just go.”

It felt like he waited forever until he felt it drop its shoulders and breathe out slowly.

“Right…”

«~•~»

“And what exactly does it do?”

Examining the unlabeled bottle, Itaru peered inside at the pills and rotated the bottle in his hands before shifting his gaze to Chikage who was stitching up an unconscious Banri’s wound.

“It’ll knock you out for a couple hours and wipe your memory of the last several hours. Banri’s already getting his dosage in the fluid bag,” Chikage pointed at the bags currently attached to Banri. “The less you remember about today, the better it is for everyone.”

Itaru made eye contact with Tsumugi who lifted his chin slightly and released a heavy breath.

“I know that kinda sigh.” Chikage said. “You don’t have to worry about me, I’ll clean up this mess. And I’ll have Banri stay here until he’s healed and convince him to tell the others that he went home for the time being.”

“How are you gonna explain the bullet hole to Banri when he wakes up? It’s gonna leave a scar.”

“He got into a fight and someone had a gun, I pulled him out of there before it got too bad.”

Itaru frowned. “That’s a pretty lazy lie for someone like you.”

“Well, it’s the only one that’ll do. Plus, I’m sure if I tell him that story, he wouldn’t want anyone at the dorms to worry so he won’t really fight me on this.”

“And if someone’s curiosity spikes?” Tsumugi inquired. “Mainly his significant others.”

“Banri’s the kind of person who would hide this well.”

Itaru looked at the bottle again and sighed, “Any side effects?”

“A headache, but that’s about it. You could probably blame it on no coffee or your late nights.”

“And how exactly are you cleaning up this mess?” Tsumugi asked as Itaru looked up from the bottle in time to see Chikage’s movements falter slightly before picking back up nearly instantly. “It’s fine if you tell us because we’ll be taking these pills anyway, right Chikage-san?”

Chikage took a deep breath. “The group responsible for this had a vendetta against me and I’ll be dealing with them.”

“‘Dealing with them’.” Tsumugi said with a tone Itaru hardly ever heard from him. _Annoyance._ “You mean killing them.”

“Tsumugi—”

“You’re putting yourself in danger for our sake.”

“I’ll be _fine._ ”

“Then text me.”

At that, Chikage actually stopped what it was doing and turned to look at Tsumugi with a look of confusion. “...huh?”

Tsumugi stared it down. “Text me. Every hour. I’ll still take the pill, but I want you to text me every hour so that I know you’re okay. I may not know the reason anymore, but it’d still comfort me. Promise me, Chikage-san.”

For some reason, this scene felt very familiar to Itaru as he watched the other two. And when Chikage looked over at Itaru as if asking for help, Itaru simply raised his arms in surrender, the pill bottle shaking in his hand. “Don’t get me involved in your lover’s quarrel, even though I’m pretty sure Tasuku’s probably gonna be on your ass for my sake.”

“You’re not helping.”

“Well, you did say you were gonna clean up, and no offense, but I agree with Tsumugi.”

Chikage sighed heavily before turning back to Banri and getting back to work. “Okay okay, I promise. Go and take the pill now, I’ve already called Hisoka to pick you both up in an hour.”

Walking over to the couch Tsumugi was seated at, Itaru popped the bottle open and handed one tablet to him before getting one for himself. He examined it for a moment. “Doesn’t hurt, right?”

“Doesn’t hurt. Completely painless.” Chikage confirmed.

Itaru turned to Tsumugi when he saw him take it from the corner of his eye, then watched as Tsumugi settled back into a comfortable position as he allowed the effects to take over. Once Tsumugi’s breathing evened out, Itaru looked back at the pill, “I’ll still do it y’know.”

“Do what.”

“Stop you.” Itaru looked over at Chikage who was now looking at him. “I made a promise to you and I intend to keep it.”

Chikage shook its head, “What you did today was stupid. I had a gun, I could’ve hurt you.”

Itaru couldn’t help but smile at it. “You wouldn’t. No matter how deep you would be in your bloodlust, you wouldn’t hurt any of us.”

“And how exactly do you know that to be true?”

“Like I said, Senpai.”

Leaning back in the chair, Itaru swallowed the pill dry and released a relieving breath, closing his eyes with a smile ever present on his face.

“I know you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I swear one of these days I'll write a happy Chikage fic, I swear. It'll happen, just watch.


End file.
